NELFT Quality Improvement Awards 2024
It was a day of celebration for all who participated in our NELFT Quality Improvement (QI) Awards 2024. This annual event showcases our commitment as a Trust to fostering a culture of continuous improvement and not only doing our jobs, but trying to improve them. It was also fabulous to hear how the nominees were already sharing their work prior to the event and how the new connections that have been made will hopefully influence scaling of more work in other teams across NELFT!
We had QI projects nominated from every Directorate, and the judges had a hard time choosing the winner. The criteria included:
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Did the project demonstrate application of QI method?
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Is there data to support the outcomes?
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Is there a clear demonstration of improvement or learning from what did not go well?
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Is the project applicable to other settings?
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Is there patient involvement?
The winning project had the aim of reducing the length of time between referral and admission into the Kent and Medway Adolescent hospital, from an urgent referral, to an average of less than 2 days by December 2024. Krystal Usher, the project lead, shared a few words:
The Facilitator programme (NELFT QI training alongside your own improvement idea) was amazing and really helped me understand what method I needed to use to test what changes would make a difference. It's the team on the ground that really helped me achieve this success, I reassessed the data a couple of weeks ago and was amazed we were able to sustain the change. I celebrated with the team but now we will celebrate even more that I've won, so thank you!
You can find a video of Krystal’s project, along with presentations of the other nominated projects here.
As a thank you for all the hard work undertaken for these projects, our winner and two other highly commended project leads, will be joining our improvement advisors for The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Health Improvement Alliance Europe workshop in Belfast in November 2024.
Get Involved
At NELFT, we believe that by learning from our past experiences, involving users of service and staff to improve our current practices, and striving for better outcomes, we can significantly enhance the quality of care we provide. By sharing projects and success stories, using the NELFT quality improvement method, we not only celebrate achievements but also inspire others to try and use the same method to make changes in their teams.